👋 Servus!*
Welcome to Friday, where Donald Trump selects vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to oversee U.S. health agencies, Xi Jinping is inaugurating a huge port in Peru and the list of the world’s most polluting cities is unveiled at COP29. We also feature a piece by Laura Ewert for Die Zeit unpacking what’s good and bad about the German fascination for Italy.
[*Bavarian, Germany and Austria]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Chinese President Xi Jinping embarked on a week-long diplomatic tour of South America on Thursday. His trip started with the inauguration of a massive deep-water port in Peru. Peruvian newspaper La República, dedicates its front page to the $1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent. With China's demand for agricultural goods and metals from Latin America growing, Xi will participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima then head to the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, where he will also make a state visit to Brazil. Read more in this analysis translated from Spanish by Worldcrunch: How Latin America Can Use China As A Bargaining Chip To Get More From The U.S.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Trump selects vaccine skeptic RFK Jr to lead top U.S. health agency. The president-elect said on Thursday he had picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the Secretary of Health and Human Services in his second White House administration. The environmental activist who has spread misinformation on vaccines had run as an independent in the presidential campaign before backing Trump. In an apparent response to Kennedy’s nomination, the World Health Organization said on Friday morning that vaccines are “absolutely critical” to global health.
• Israel strikes south Beirut after U.S. delivers truce proposal. A building near one of Beirut’s busiest traffic junctions collapsed on Friday, as two strikes attributed to Israel hit the Hezbollah-controlled area of the Lebanese city. This comes after the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon submitted a draft truce proposal to Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday. “Efforts to reach a diplomatic deal are ongoing,” said a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. For more on this topic, check this essay translated from Arabic by Worldcrunch: No More Tears — My Lebanon War Diary And The Routine Of Tragedy.
• Biden arrives in Peru for APEC summit and meeting with Xi. The U.S. president’s Air Force One landed outside Lima on Thursday for a six-day visit to Latin America and the final major international summits of his presidency, under a cloud of diplomatic uncertainty cast by Donald Trump’s election victory. Biden is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, likely for the last time, on Saturday.
• Sri Lanka’s ruling leftist coalition wins by landslide. Official results show on Friday that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) coalition secured 62% of the vote and a two-thirds majority in parliament, with 159 seats. Dissanayake, who was elected in September amid a wave of popular discontent with austerity measures imposed by his predecessor, promised to combat corruption and restore stability after the island’s worst-ever economic crisis. Will Sri Lanka’s president scrap Adani’s massive wind farm project? Check this reportage translated from French by Worldcrunch.
• Thousands join march on New Zealand capital over Indigenous treaty overhaul. The nine-day march, which is expected to reach Wellington on Tuesday, is being staged in towns across the country to protest against a contentious bill redefining New Zealand’s 184-year-old founding agreement between the British and the Indigenous Māori people. The document granted Māori tribes broad rights to retain their lands and protect their interests in return for ceding governance to the British. On Thursday, Māori MPs performed a haka to disrupt a vote at the first parliamentary hearing of the bill.
• Shanghai tops list of world’s most polluting cities revealed at COP29. New data combining observations and artificial intelligence show that cities in Asia and the U.S. emit the most heat-trapping gas that feeds climate change. Shanghai’s 256 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses exceeded those from Colombia or Norway. The city is followed by Tokyo, New York City, Houston and Seoul. It might be time to rethink our cities, says this piece by El Espectador, translated from Spanish by Worldcrunch.
• Tennis star fined for swearing too much. U.S. athlete Frances Tiafoe was given a $120,000-fine, the ATP announced on Thursday, for a profanity-laden outburst at chair umpire during the Shanghai Masters in October. The tennis star apologized later, saying “I let my frustration in the heat of the moment get the best of me.” Did you know that profanity is kind of a national sport in Turkey? Find out more in this article: "You Ass Tulip!" What Those Unique Turkish Insults Say About Tradition And Prejudice.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$1.6 billion
Nissan will have a year of break in 2025 before hitting a record bond maturity wall as concerns grow about its ability to generate cash. The automaker and its group firms have about $1.6 billion of debt due next year, a slight decrease from 2024, but that figure will jump to around $5.6 billion in 2026, the most in Bloomberg-compiled data going back to 1996. The debt due in 2026 is in yen, dollars and euros.
📹 ON THIS DAY VIDEO — 4 HISTORY-MAKING EVENTS, IN 57 SECONDS
➡️ Watch the video: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
📰 IN OTHER NEWS
🇮🇷 Iranian officials insist another Trump presidency could never change its policies. But given the first Trump administration, Tehran should expect hard times ahead.
— KAYHAN-LONDON
🇯🇴 Jordan's leadership is holding its breath for the return of Donald Trump to the White House. What will his second term mean for the country?
— DARAJ
🫶 The German longing for Italy has become a cliché worth analyzing. Many trace it back to Goethe’s journey in the 18th century, often cited as the beginning of Germany's love affair with Italy.
— DIE ZEIT
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📣 VERBATIM
“The competition for using drones as the main means of military capabilities is being accelerated in the world.”
— North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un has called for speeding up the mass production of attack drones, as international concerns mount over the country’s military cooperation with Russia. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Friday that Kim supervised the latest tests of “various types of suicide attack drones” produced by Pyongyang’s Unmanned Aerial Technology Complex.
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet & Emma Albright
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